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A flavour of the more popular collecting categories is given - club issues, cup finals and semi finals, international programmes, general programmes, other leagues, foreign programmes, pre- and ex-league issues and others.
The Introductory chapter, reproduced below, gives a flavour of the book
INTRODUCING A GREAT HOBBY
Matchday programmes reflect the very best of our great sport. The triumphs and set-backs of the modern game are recorded in their contents; the rich and varied history of the sport is best portrayed in nostalgic articles; and the game's personalities are profiled in words and pictures.
For £1 or more, or even less at non-league levels, programmes have an intrinsic, immediate value, unlike stamps, coins, trade cards and such like. Once the match is over, the publication which uniquely represented it takes on a different role, and becomes "a collectable". In the years to come, it will become a store of memories and nostalgia to football fans who can relive the roller coaster of emotions that make up a football season. It will remind readers of otherwise long-forgotten players, managers and personalities, and provide a valuable and authoritative historical and statistical chronicle of a period in a club's history.
That same programme, again down the years, will have even further value to the owner if he or she purchased the programme at the match. In that context it will bring back memories of personal milestones, often during formative years.
In a thriving second hand market, that very programme may complete a "set" for an avid collector. This part of a programme's life introduces the whole ethos of programme collecting and the pleasure it brings to those who participate .... the sense of achievement in building and completing sets, the friendships to be made throughout the country and overseas as one corresponds, exchanges, buys and sells with other collectors. Collecting programmes of other clubs and from other countries makes one realise the widespread popularity of our sport, and introduces the collector to other areas of his own country, and abroad.
These fascinating features of football programme collecting will be described in the chapters of this booklet, along with hints on how to build up and store a collection of programmes.
COLLECTING FOOTBALL PROGRAMMES is available from Programme Monthly, priced £1 plus 35p postage (Europe plus 80p, outside Europe plus £1.40) , from PO Box 3236, Norwich, NR7 7BE.
UK purchasers may pay by 5 x unused first class postage stamps; Purchasers abroad may pay in Euro Notes.
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